Museo Piazza

Forests, meadows, walls: an excursion for expertsFor who coming from Pontechiaradovo, the climb begins on the apparent cart that climbs to the left a few meters before reaching the gate that prevents their from continuing along the Gola. Following the path 107A it arrive at q.338 to a small refuge with source at the edge of a clearing. Continue into the bush towards the base of the high walls of solid limestone up to take to the right the path 107B. Some short hairpins and is near the entrance to the Vernino cave. The trail continues climbing instead on the left, then right cross some exposed rocks and goes up with hairpin the steep scree. Do not leave the track mostly downhill, until gain the path that crosses flat for about 2km the hips of Colle Tordina and Colle Foglia. From Case Marcellini the view can sweep on the hills that slope from north-east to the sea. But even greater is the view from the summit, getting closer, Monte Murano. Follow towards south the path 143A on track before flat and then more steeply in overcoming the last crags near the top, a bit differs from the cross, as evidenced by a stronghold of Military Geographic Institute.

A remote cataclysmThe rocks that make up the backbone of t Appennino Umbro-Marche are sedimentary, have formed during that tens and tens of millions of years to the gradual overlap of debris on the seabed. In this way originated stacks of several hundred meters thick, consisting of several sections with different features, corresponding to situations where the climatic conditions were different and the depth of the water. Each section have a definite rock formation. Numerous "disasters" have, however, upset the orderly stratification of rocks, the imposing walls of limestone massif of Vernino valley, for example, witness the rise of this side for several hundred feet above the present valley floor. This occurred in the Jurassic, while this part of the Apennines was still submerged. From this moment the differences in environment between the area at the base and one at the top of the embankment leading to the formation in the two zones of different sequences of rocks. Later, when the whole structure had almost emerged, the deepening of the valley, due to erosion of rocks less resistant, reported out the walls of ancient submarine escarpment.

A wall of stone and homesickness.In the Vernino Valley, along the path 107A just above the old quarry, we encounter in a work that certainly do not leave indifferent the most careful hiker. The path, at the point where cross a slope very friable, is supported for tens of meters by a dry wall from the bill are maintained year. There were used stone blocks from fairly small, carefully squared and leaving minimal gaps between the stones. The patina that covers the blocks denounces the age, the construction characteristics differentiate this artifact from other artifact that we find in the area, such as support walls that surround the cart road that leads up the bottom of the valley. These, in fact, are made using generally larger boulders, roughly squared and combined in a much less strict, the result of a technical less scrupulous and but faster and cheaper. In fact, those who had built with such skill work like that, certainly didn’t have the problem of the cost of labor. There were Austrian soldiers, prisoners of war during the years of the First World War, to leave this and other evidence of technical ability and who knows, a passion for the mountains, perhaps greater than the same aversion for the "enemy."